


Try and Try and Try (She Would Sing)

by Feathers



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Character Death, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-28
Updated: 2017-03-28
Packaged: 2018-10-12 06:56:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10484973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Feathers/pseuds/Feathers
Summary: She held him then, briefly but tightly, and she whispered reassurance and love in his ear.





	

**Author's Note:**

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4y33h81phKU
> 
> listen to this while you read for full effect

No body to bury, there stood a single stick with a single name carved into it. A stick he hadn't seen since he'd stabbed it into the earth so long ago.

The pain in his chest clung to his skin and pulled _in and in and in_ , but his breath couldn't keep up. He raised a hand to try and relieve the pressure but all he could do was hold on. Tears lay stagnant at his eyelashes, but he wouldn't cry. He refused to cry - had promised himself not to. He had to make an example out of himself. An example of a person who has _lost and lost and lost_ so much but could still pull through. He'd been telling himself he was that kind of person for so long he almost forgot it was a lie. But he wasn't a strong person. He'd died twice before, and broke an oath just as many times.

She had seen him, lying on that tablet, lifeless and cold, and that broke his heart more than any beast could ever try. All he had wanted was to be a good father to her and his worst fear came true. She had seen him die just as he had seen-

This woman, so strange yet so familiar, slammed the door shut in a way that brought his gaze to her in panic. She dodged around, and with a strength you wouldn't expect, she moved their shared dresser, three times the size of her, in front of the door. The door wasn't safe.

He had been finishing up his morning meal - stew and freshly baked bread - when the noises began. They were muffled and undefined, and he wasn't so sure he was actually hearing them as opposed to feeling them. She ran to him, wiping away his spoon and bowl, but he did not fight her when she did this. He would never fight her.

She began packing. Very hurriedly and not quite efficiently, but there had never been very much to pack in their home. All he could do was stand there, confused. He could feel questions slipping from his lips but he couldn't hear what he was saying. It was suddenly feeling _warmer and warmer and warmer_ and the smell of ash filled his lungs quickly. There was a beating and gnashing at the door. Wicked laughter. The door wasn't safe. When this woman, this lovely and brave and beautiful woman ran to him, she carried with her what would have been memories to share. She held him then, briefly but tightly, and she whispered reassurance and love in his ear.

He could feel the tears fall from his eyes now as she began to sing to him. The song she would always sing to lull him to sleep when he was kept awake by nightmares of monster, or questions of where the love of her life was. The song she would sing in the mornings as she batted the dust from their tattered curtains, clean and polish tables and chairs so tarnished from being pulled from the trash of someone else. The song she would sing at any given time they had company and she told him he would have to find entertainment outside and away from their one room home.

She broke away and began to drag him towards the window, throwing a chair through it so they could escape. The door wasn't safe.

A flash and bang. Torn from his hands, her singing turned to screaming, yelling at him to run. Something was different. His hands had always been small, but they were the size of a child's hands now, and it was with a child's eyes that he was seeing her be stabbed and gutted, and it was a child's feet that ran from her, too scared to be of any help to her. Too frightened to stand and fight, too weak to fend them off, and too cowardly to have taken her life so she wouldn't have to suffer.

They always say to never look back, but no one had ever told him that. He didn't know. And so, after he climbed through the window - when he turned, he saw blood in her dirty blonde hair, saw terror and torture in her hazel eyes, and saw red and red and red streaming from her eyes and neck as a dagger slit her throat and a mace bashed at her head _again and again and_ -

He snapped back to reality like a slap against his raw cheek, but she did not hit him. She had felt so horrible for doing so previously, and she swore to never harm him like that ever again. She had said she would try to never hurt him in any way ever - not if she could help it. She had kept her promise, so far. She was so much stronger than he was, and he could feel it as his daughter's arms encased him as his mother's had all those many years ago.

When they pulled apart, she looked like her. A spitting image of her grandmother, but with closed wounds marring her skin as opposed to open and bleeding. Closed wounds were good. Closed was safe. Her eyes shone with a glimmer of held back tears, but her smile was _warm and warm and warm_ but the pain here was a good one. A happy one.

Looking down, he sees his footprints twirling and stumbling backward until they met where he stood now, yards further away from his mother's name.

"Thank you. For taking me to see her," she said with a voice as strong and as bold as stone. And with hers, he found his own.

It took effort - so much effort that he wasn't sure the words came out. "It was about time I paid Juniper a visit." His voice sounded as broken and as vulnerable as he felt, and from the hand against his cheek, he knew she could hear it to. He brought his hand to her's and clasped it and felt tears there. He was never any good at keeping promises, anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> okay i'm so uncool i cried while typing this


End file.
